“Nick?” Came a quaint, quiet voice from behind me as I placed my designer jacket over my shoulders and placed the generous tip for the waiter down on the table. I turned to see the origins of the voice and then gulped heavy as Sheryl stood before me, her eyes teary and her face full of worry and love.

“How did you know I would be here?” I said glancing around the coffee house at the rest of the customers who continued their own conversations, paying no attention to this rather dramatic moment in the personal lives of me and my wife, a wife I hadn’t seen for around 2 months and not since the whole rape issue that had changed me and my mentality so much.

“You came here often enough when you worked for MCW, I figured you’d come back with the show being in Detroit, I’ve been coming here for the last two days” She said, her eyes just looking me up and down, her face practically begging me to just step forward and wrap my arms around her.

“I just arrived today.” I said awkwardly before looking up at her, with a sigh, I just extended my arms, my throat closing up as I hold the tears back, instantly she steps forward, nearly leaping off her back foot into my chest, her head resting on my chest as she cries gently against my shirt. I breath heavily and just kiss the top of her head. I had missed her so much, but my guilt for putting her through so much in my most recent of dramas had forced me to stay away, that along with my new found mentality. I couldn’t afford to be weak when I was preparing to wage war against not just one man, but an entire business.

“Why did you run away?” She said through her tears, tugging me tighter and holding me close.

“I just needed to clear my head” I gently replied, stroking a strand of hair over her ear and sighing through the guilt of making the woman I love like this.

Jacob Laymon had said something in our match two weeks ago, during the promotional works for it, he had said, looking for the thing that hurts me is more difficult to find then it is for other opponents he faces, because my love isn’t my wife and child, my fondest love isn’t my family or friends, my love is the sport, the industry we compete in and in this moment, I couldn’t help but think back to that few seconds of dialogue and close my eyes in shame.

“Has it helped?” She said, still snuggled deep into my chest.

“Yes. I’m sorry Sheryl. I do love you, so, so much. I never wanted any of this” I said, regretful for everything I had put her through, but thankful to have her in my life. I felt her stroke my arms with her hand.

“It’s fine. A lot has happened, I was just so worried. I love you to” she said calmly, her body relaxing as if she suddenly felt somewhat reassured.

“Is Scott here?” I asked her as she pulled away and wiped her eyes.

“No, he had to go back to do some filming for a movie, but I’m going to phone him later” She said letting out a deep breath and smiling her sweet smile as she gazed up at me.

“Come on” I said taking her hand in mine and walking her out off the coffee shop.

“Where are we going?” She replied with some confusion.

“The MGM” I replied with a smug grin.

“Pretty lavish for you isn’t it?” She said as we walked.

“Well, I’ve taken some time to think and decided that spending money and having the best of things is something I’ve earned over these years, so why not make the most of it?” We both smiled like two young kids in love. Maybe the break, the distance and the drama was worth it, maybe it was the best thing for both of us.

God knows, in our busy lives, love always comes second to business, to our professions and maybe this space apart, this break from one another has taught us, that in time, we lose everything, our bodies give up on us, our jobs become a young mans game and the world changes to a degree that when you are old, you don’t seem important anymore. But the one thing you don’t lose are the people who love you, the people who mean the most… So maybe, between my war on the sick society and my enjoyment finally of the high life… I can find time for love and the ‘best’ woman I could ever ask for, my wife, my love.

It was the least she deserved, for everything.

**********************************************************************************

It had been a long and enjoyable day and glancing across the large and comfortable bed at my naked wife as she lay asleep on the bed, a silk cover gently laid over her, but so thin that it still showed every curve of her body, a nostalgic pride entered my mind causing me to grin slyly to myself. I rolled my legs off the bed and padded my feet into the luxury carpet like a cat would. The hotel was beautiful, it was classic luxury without any exception, the staff were brilliant and as helpful as you could ask and no expense was spared on the fittings and fixtures of the room, it was perfect and living this life was something I could get use to.

On the road, any wrestler or backroom hand who knew me, knew I hated lavish spending, my car for a long time was never a Ferrari or an Aston Martin, but instead, a custom designed Toyota MR2, I loved that car and still had it in my garage at home. My home was another thing, though more expensive than the average home, it was only four bedrooms and only had limited land around the main building, we didn’t have tennis courts or even a swimming pool, the biggest expense in our house was the gym and the specifically designed equipment to help me keep in shape for my wrestling career, something that I proudly attributed to my long run at the top.

When I thought about it, wasn’t that yet another point to my long list of points against the ‘Sick Society’? While legends of this sport have retired and died, having spent their money and lived a lavish lifestyle, slept with hundreds of girls, drunk night in and night out, done drugs and generally been pretty fucking irresponsible with their lives, I on the other hand have trained hard, worked hard and done everything I needed to do to be the best. I gave up drinking, I’ve never done drugs or even taken steroids and while I gave my family some nice things, my money was saved and put away for the days when I could enjoy retirement myself.

Yet Ironically, here I am, walking around fit and healthy, back in bed with my wife, my son, grown up and accomplished in the world of film and all the nice things I spent moderate amounts of money on are still mine, further to that, I have a load of cash and bonds and saving funds stored away that I could live for another 100 years and be perfectly well off and never have a thing to worry about, yet, I look around and I see guys I wrestled in the ring 10 years ago having to go and do autograph signings and trying to force feed uncaring kids VHS tapes of some of there greatest moments, most of which include me, just to make enough money for a roof over their heads or at least another bottle of Vodka to see them through a rainy night.

I leant back over the bed and ran my hand over Sheryl’s figure before kissing the back of her shoulder softly. I then stood from the bed and placed my jeans on. My shirt was hanging smartly from the back of the chair by the dressing table, so I stood on the thick carpet and walked across to it, before throwing it over my large shoulders and doing it up. Once dressed fully, I placed my shoes on and glared back across the dark room at my wife. I didn’t want her to wake and see me missing, she’d think the worst after the way I avoided her before. I sat back down on the chair and took a notepad and pen from her handbag.

‘My beautiful girl,

If you wake up while I’m gone, don’t panic. My head is clear now and I know what I have to do for the best interests of you, our son and for my career and that is to finally give us the life we deserve, the life you deserve.

I have popped out to see an old friend, Mike Trojan. I’m sure you remember him, from the old WFN days, your dads company. I thought I’d pop in and say hello while we were in town.

I love you baby. I’ll be back soon.

xxx’

I placed the note on her bedside table and grinned with selfish pride as I looked upon her beautiful face against the rays of the moonlight shining in through the gap in the curtains at the far end of the room. She was beautiful and why I left her for as long as I did, while necessary is something I’ll never truly understand, especially knowing how much I missed her so longingly for.

With a deep breath, I turned and walked out of the room.

Detroit, Michigan was the home of someone I had known for a long time, someone who had never seen eye to eye with me, he was someone who had it all, someone who had come into the business a young, cocky son of a bitch with a bad attitude but a lot of popularity with the bookers. He was even the guy who ruined my wedding day to Sheryl Marie Gray when we had the whole thing booked to happen in front of thousands of fans live on WFN television over a decade ago! We hadn’t seen each other for a long time now, rumour had it that Mike got a little over his head, enjoyed the ‘perks’ of the business a little to much and found himself getting distracted and not being able to perform the way people knew he could.

Not long after WFN closed, he disappeared off the professional radar and when I spoke to some of the newer names coming up, it seems he had fallen from grace after avid drug use and drink issues, he became unreliable, not turning up for shows and when he did, he would nostalgically, but aggressively tell the world who he was and what he had done, making enemies behind the scenes everywhere he went.

Mike Trojan, a guy with all the potential in the world to be one of the greatest of all time, I man I had a year long feud with for one reason or another, a man who like me, had come into the business and reached his prime, someone I had expected to fight for World titles with for years to come and yet… He destroyed everything he had.

I stopped in the cab outside the building where Mike now lived. It was an apartment building, small, probably no more then 4 or 5 apartments inside and it was in a pretty roughed up area of Detroit and trust me, if anybody knows Detroit, ‘pretty roughed up’ is a bad place to be.

“Thank you” I said, handing the taxi driver much more money then he required, however, I rolled out of the taxi and just stood as the cab drove off, glaring at this apartment and thinking of the comparisons between his life and mine.

“Got any change pal?” Said the voice of an old man across the street glaring at me as he sat on a curb, it would have been rude to say no, after all, I had come into a pretty destroyed part of the city wearing a suit with a £2000 overcoat and designers jewellery and shoes, I was hardly keeping my fortune a secret.

“Sure” I said, pulling $500 from my pocket and kneeling down to the elderly man, I glared him in the eyes and put the cash in his hand causing his eyes to widen and glance back and forth at me as if he didn’t know whether to even accept it.

“This is to much” He said, trying to hand it back to me, but I closed the mans hands with my own, allowing him to grip it fully.

“How old are you?” I asked curiously.

“I forget. But last time I remembered, I was 85” He said to me with a smile, his eyes glaring down at his hand.

“So you fought in World War 2?” I asked, my eyes not looking anywhere but at his and with this question, I noticed his eyes look back up at me with a sorrowful gaze.

“I did, but it’s not something I’m proud of” He said, his tone covered with shame.

“Why? You saved a nation” I suggested calmly, but the man tapped me on the shoulder as if he had sympathy for me.

“Killing as many men whom I never knew and never will know does not make me a saviour or a hero my boy. It makes me a man who did what he was told to do and like so many others from both sides… I never stopped to think of the morality of the whole fucking thing.” He said with a slight smile appearing on his face. “Murder, however you cover it up, is never something to be proud of”.

I knew that far to well myself after what happened to the Tanner family at my hands, nonetheless, I tapped the man on the shoulder and put my hand in his, slowly helping him to his feet.

“Where do you live?” I asked.

“Wherever the night takes me my boy” He said with a grin, before tapping me on the back in a thankful gesture. “Thank you for being so kind to an old man”.

“I’m kind to those who deserve it” I said “But not so kind to those who do not”

My eyes quickly turned to the home of Mike Trojan.

The old man just nodded in agreement and placed his large wad of notes into his pocket, he then turned and walked away. He was the opposite of what I considered to be the ‘Sick society’, a man who took no pride in the bad things he had done, though he had done them, a man who was sorrowful and modest and yet, his role in the world as we know it is forgotten, his role in the world and the things we have today was made obsolete and instead of bring protected and given the life of a hero whether he wanted it or not, he was left to fend for himself on the dangerous streets of a city torn apart by gang warfare, an old man who was surviving his final days as the lowest of society when the truth was, he was one of the best among us.

I turned back to the building and walked to the door, the lead I got was correct and his name was on the buzzer, I pressed it and waited patiently for someone to answer. After a few moments of silence, finally I heard a shuffling about.

“Hello?”

“Mike Trojan?”

“Yeah, who the fuck is this?”

“Nick Harris, remember me?”

“Lethal?”

“Yep”

“… Holy shit. Wait right there.”

…My message for Mike…

Would be a very different message then the one I had for the old man.

****************************************************************************

I look around me and see many faces, young faces, the faces of the new generation of wrestlers coming through into the industry I love, the industry that has given me a fortune and done so much for me, an industry I to have done so much for, propelling it to the boom of it popularity through the nineties and the early 2000’s. I stood upon the top of the mountain like nobody ever had, in a style many found innovative and different, in a way that made me stand out, not just from the crowd, but from every single crowd that ever gathered in the wrestling business. I was a legend to rule all legends from the moment I was born, the moment I walked into a wrestling promotion and asked for a job.
I was something special and I still was.

Yet, the boom didn’t last, the popularity of the sport I loved died and wrestlers went from being superstars who gained international coverage and interest to being back where they started, an embarrassing joke of a career that people no longer considered a sport and instead, joked at our expense, claiming we were men who wanted to hug other men while dosed in baby oil and wearing tight outfits – where did we go wrong? What happened for this business to take a giant step backwards and regress to such a point that any nostalgic memory of what use to be needed to be double checked to be sure that it actually happened and what we remembered wasn’t in fact some dream of what ‘could have been?’

I look around me now, in the verge of stepping into the ring with the superstars of the FWA and the MCW and I look at all the young talent, I look at the likes of Eli Legacy, Jackie Daniels, even Sophie O’Brian, Tony Drake, names who are beginning to be heard, beginning to stand out, beginning to set there career alight and hopefully be ‘the next Lethal Weapon’ the stand out performer in the whole of wrestling history, somebody who can re-establish the boom and bring back the ‘good old days’ of wrestling.

But as I look at there faces and consider what each of them might bring to the table, I see nothing, I see a pointless attempt at recreating the things that have been done a million times over already, I see a group who are no more reminiscent of the latest Star Wars re-make. Flash in the pan successes who might show a moment of brilliance once or twice in their career but who will otherwise disappear and be forgotten in the next couple of years without any recognition or everlasting legend to be spoken of in the years to come. They are filler until something better comes along and I have to be honest… Is this what I handed the torch down to?

At Paranoia 5, Lethal Weapon and Orlando Cruze went shot for shot, punch for punch in the middle of the ring and we made the world stand up and pay attention to the talent and the quality that was on offer, it was billed as the passing of the torch match, a chance for the new generation of athletes to take the baton from the man who had led the sport for so long, nearly single handily and in turn, make their claim to the world, that wrestling had found its new fire… Cruze won that match and I left quietly and the world considered that the passing of the torch, even I did, I was happy to leave the sport I loved and let the new guys take on the challenge of doing something that could enthral the world and make everyone of us pay attention and tune in.

The problem was…

Orlando, along with ‘his’ generation failed. They failed to make the business mean anything, they failed to do anything new or anything different and they failed to keep the business at the bar I had set, let alone stand up and take it further, higher. Sure, Orlando will forever be remembered as a legend, but the legend of legends? The king of kings? The man who had done it all? No. Even though he beat me in one of the most hyped matches of them all, he failed to hold the industries on his shoulders and for that reason, even right now, Orlando Cruze will forever be remembered as a success, as a superstar of his age, but not as someone who could hold there own against the legend that I bring to the table, even if he managed to beat me once… He will always be the guy who people say “Oh remember when Lethal Weapon did this, did that, oh and remember that match against Cruze?”, he is a passing thought to the fans and what worries me the most, is Orlando Cruze set a new standard after I left this business for a long time, he set this standard that the rest of the wrestling world now seems to want to follow.

I mentioned it before ‘flash in the pan’. Quick success and then retirement or departure from the federation, a loss and they pick up and leave out of embarrassment or a block of the mind because they don’t know what to say or do anymore! People joke and mock the amount of retirements I have had, they mock my age, they say I should step down and walk away and let the youth of today take their ‘rightful’ place amongst the stars of this business… But what people fail to realise is that I have had so many smokescreen retirements because the business deems that it needs me back, it suggests that a legend must return for it to survive and when this industry needs me, for all it’s done for me, the least I can do in return, is come back and up the ratings of a federation for awhile and give the fans a nostalgic memory of what the business use to be.
If the youth of this business wanted those spots so badly, they would be talented enough to take them, to keep old timers like me from progressing and succeeding in an athletes realm, where the young should ALWAYS have an advantage, yet, Eli Legacy fought me two weeks ago and came up short, the same as every young talent who’s crossed me earlier. Jacob Laymon, Rayne Young, more experienced guys in this federation, though my feelings for them are as poor as they are for the new boys of this business, at least they hang around and stick with it, when Rayne got his ass handed to him by me, at least he stuck around and wins the plaudits for his performance, Jacob got beat by Glory and although he wasn’t the most dignified in defeat, he battled back to earn his spot and another chance at the title and the best of the best do that, even in the current world of the wrestling business. You reveal in your victories and you become enpowered by your defeats…

The young of this industry should take note and learn.

But mentioning Jacob and Rayne gets me thinking about the older generations of this business, the guys who should know better, the guys who should be able to walk around the lobbies backstage and set an example, guys like Doctor Ian, Greg Venom, Jacob, Rayne, Glory Braddock, but they don’t. They don’t do a fucking thing about the rot that this business suffers, instead they continue to plagurize us with the same bullshit we have heard for too many years now, the same “I’m going to destroy the company, I don’t agree with how this works, how that works, I don’t want this, that, blah, blah, fucking blah” – The fact is, some of the names I mentioned if not all of them are revered by the current generation of fans, considered legends by many in and out of the business, even guys like Jackson Adams are considered highly by promoters and fans as people who have stood the test of time and remained in the mainstream of this business for so long against all the odds and against all the new, younger talents who are coming in trying to claim their spot.

For that, well done to all of you, but lets not be coy, some of you and I’m looking at Jackson Adams, at Priest, at Rayne Young, have kept your place in these federations and kept your wage through your reputation alone, you haven’t moved on with the times, you haven’t adapted with age and you haven’t stepped up your game, even Doctor Ian and Greg worry me with some of there performances since they returned to the MCW and Kirsta Lewis, once a woman who was feared by many and actually gave me some hope for the future of this business has become a laughing stock.

I look at you, the current veterans of the sport, guys who come from the Orlando Cruze era of the wrestling business and I ask myself what you have done to deserve the plaudits, I ask myself what it is you have accomplished in the time I have been gone and why it is that STILL to this date, the boom of the business, the quality of the talent, the spectacular feuds of history that people still talk about today aren’t those of yours, but those of my era, people still discuss FWL.net, they still discuss WFN, Lethal Weapon, Cell Block, 6 Pac Dudley, Mike Trojan, they still talk about Chris Bomber, Jeremy Diaz, Caleb Hart, Alexander Fayt – The Fallen Angel, even guys like Desolation. Why?

Why did your era, your generation fail so badly, that the UCWF days, the feuds of Doctor Ian, Greg Venom, Rayne Young, even Cruze, are discussed, but only within the circles of those who competed in it, the UCWF names. Why doesn’t the wider world take interest in what you are doing and what you have done?

Let me tell you.

Its because you were doing nothing original, nothing new, you believed in your own egotistical nonsense and you listened to your own voices to fucking much, you didn’t take in to consideration the lessons of those who came before you, you didn’t consider the teachings of those who had given you everything and made you the superstars you are today, the guys who put wrestling on the map, GUYS LIKE ME!

Ignorance is bliss as they say and I’m sure that’s a motto many of you took liberties off for many years and far too often, but consider the bliss of ignorance gone from this moment forward because while many of my era might be suffering for the knocks and the damage they took to give you idiots the ball to run with, I remained strong, my body nimble enough to continue kicking ass’s and taking names and there will be no bliss for any of you when I stand in that ring before you, that much, I assure you.

I have looked around this business for hope for too long, for too many years and I have tried to help and guide the youth of tomorrow to something greater, to a greater purpose but my fears are realised by the world we live in, where high wages in the sport allows the young to become distracted, there egos get over inflated with self confident babble and to many yes men surround the halls, giving the rosters of today a belief that they are better than they actually are and the worst bit about it, is the youth, the guys who have come into this sport as it is and have taken the rewards and benefits aren’t particularly to blame, they know wrestling to be the way it is today, they understand it to be easy, with good money and big houses and nice cars and they don’t know what it takes to drag yourself from the gutter, to dig deep and to fight hard, they don’t have a clue what ‘battling from the rough’ means and they don’t understand the mentality of a man who truly wants to win, not for the cash, but for the honour of being a World Champion.

The blame falls on the generation who took the torch from me. The Orlando Cruze generation, the Doctor Ian’s, the Greg Venoms, the Rayne Youngs, the Glory Braddocks, the Angelica Jones’.

I FUCKING HANDED YOU PEOPLE THE TORCH, I gave you all of these things, the cars, the houses, the wages, the rewards, the benefits, I GAVE THEM TO YOU, The people who bled and wept for years and did so why only just being able to provide for there families, who travelled the world nearly every day of every year just to make enough to get by, the guys and girls who slept in shitty hotel rooms and had to share one car to travel around in, these guys and girls, the people from MY generation handed you fuckers the baton, we gave you the fucking stick to run with and you dropped it, my fucking god, did you drop it!!

No more.

This sick society of wrestlers I see before me, this sick society of owners, of stage hands of interviewers or commentators that I see all around me is going to learn, is going to learn hard and the time is coming when the ‘Sick Society’ I have been talking about for a long time now, get a dose of some old school punishment.

The Royal Rumble match is the beginning, because while it doesn’t allow me to split them from ear to ear and cause their blood to run to the ground as it did for all of us before them, although it won’t make them dig deep and try hard to get through the chaos I am going to reap upon their careers from this point onwards, what it does do, is give me an opportunity to beat down as many of them as I can, show some of them up and who knows, maybe even teach them all the biggest lesson that I could possibly teach them… By walking into the Dedication Rumble a contender, but walking out of it…The winner and the new number one contender for the World Heavyweight Championship.

…I’m two generations from being at my peak, but trust me MCW, trust me FWA, the sick society that you have become will not walk over me or be shown any respect, not anymore. I have lost hope in who you are and what you have all become and when the chances arises, I am going to do what somebody should have done to you all a long time ago.

The cars, the houses, the money, the rewards, the benefits, they will all mean nothing, because one by one, I am going to make you beg for mercy, I am going to show you what the people of my generation had to fight through, what we had to do to make ends meet, something none of you will understand or know how to deal with and when I’m done, hopefully, wilfully, there will be one man, or woman who will stand out from the crowd, take responsibility, put the material objects aside and give this business what it needs… A new talisman.

Until then, this disease, this sickening excuse of a roster I see before me is going to be punished, tortured and hurt and it all starts at Dedication.

And in honour of the moment, Whitecloud…

If you are watching, if you are listening, take note, because you are one of the fallen soldiers of the wrestling business I knew and loved and while we never crossed swords and never fought in the middle of the squared circle, we would have known one another through name, through reputation, like me, I’m sure you gaze upon the wrestling world now with some distaste, so at Dedication, in honour of our generation, in honour of our sacrifices…

I am going to begin my cleansing of this sickness,

once and for all.